


What if

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Drabble, M/M, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2013-05-22
Packaged: 2017-12-12 16:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/813562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What" and "If" are two words as non-threatening as words can be. But put them together side-by-side and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What if

A famous writer once said that  _love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation_. And it's true. More or less. How about love knows not its own being until the hour of separation?

What happens in case you only realize you love someone once they're gone? What if, in all this time, all you've been doing is playing a game in which you're the authority, when in reality you've never had any power over anything at all? Or anyone. Your emotions. His being. Him. Your very self.

What if you'd disregarded emotions from the very beginning of all this so that they don't make you do stupid things, and that, to begin with, was the stupidest thing you ever did?

What if you knew from the moment you laid your eyes on him? No, what if you took into account your emotions instead of straining yourself not to show them so that, god forbid, someone took you for a feeling human being?

Would it have made any difference? Would you have cared more for his safety? Would it then have been only a matter of saving the human kind, or what is left of it? Would it have made it personal? Would you have leapt to rescue him, wounded as you are? Would it have made your heart stop to see him in danger, getting eaten away by those colossal savages?

It would, and in case anyone ever asked you whether or not, you would say yes in a heartbeat. And then you'd up and leave, lock yourself up in the makeshift storage room like this and cry your soul's pain away without letting out a sound so that no one would learn you cared.

What a selfish man you are, Levi. What a selfish man to get to grasp such a sentiment and keep it from the person who has triggered it. What a selfish man must you be to leave Eren in the dark about it. What a selfish man, to still be sitting in a corner of this dark makeshift storage room, crying without letting out a sound to, god forbid, hint that you're just as vulnerable as anyone else. What a selfish man not to admit that you too sometimes do not know what to make of things. It's expected of you to know all the answers, but no one is all-knowing. So neither are you.

But you  _are_ selfish. What if Eren had known? Maybe he would have made a different decision. Maybe he would have picked taking everyone to shelter instead of dealing with the armored giant all on his own.

What if you had been there, and your selfishness hadn't?


End file.
